


we'll light up the sky as we burn it down

by Suicix



Category: Professional Wrestling, World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Angst, Break Up, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-06
Updated: 2015-06-06
Packaged: 2018-04-03 04:52:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4087636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Suicix/pseuds/Suicix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Who needs Seth Rollins, anyway?</i> </p><p>Your standard Shield break-up fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we'll light up the sky as we burn it down

**Author's Note:**

> the tag "canon-typical violence" is literally just there because it's mentioned, ygm?
> 
> Title from "I Want Out" by Young Guns.

It’s a shock, Dean has to admit that. You don’t exactly expect your teammate-best friend- _lover_ to hit you about forty-seven thousand times in the back with a steel chair on live international television, let alone expect him to be doing that because he’s betraying you, betraying the team and the cause and everything you thought he believed in.

OK, maybe it’s the biggest fucking blow Dean’s taken in his life, and not just because of the chair shots. This is going to scar him more than any deathmatch ever has, ever could. It’s happening as if just the day before they hadn’t been celebrating another victory over Evolution, as if Seth hadn’t laughed like the sun and thrown his arms around Dean and Roman backstage afterwards, as if he hadn’t kissed Dean breathless the moment they were alone.

Who the hell would _do_ that? Dean, maybe, once upon a time, but not since the Shield, not since _Seth_.

And Dean certainly wouldn’t be doing it to be part of some phony corporate suit-fest like the Authority. No fucking way. If he did something like that it would be so he alone could profit from it, not to aid the machine they’d been working against for months in any way at all.

He can’t help but think the worst – the three of them had been working with the Authority from Summerslam to early this year, and it had first and foremost been Seth who suggested they branch off for themselves instead. How long had he been planning this for? Only recently? _Since the beginning?_ How many of the _I love you_ s (which were always a big deal to Dean, so fucking immense and frightening because he never said it, never had it said to him, never _let_ anyone say it to him before) were spoken with _I’m going to betray you_ at the back or even front of Seth’s mind?

Dean wants to find a bar and drink himself into a coma and beyond, but there’s no way Roman will let Dean out of his sight, much less let him near alcohol like this, and besides, they’ve got Smackdown tomorrow.

Roman’s with him now, sat on the bench in the locker room as Dean paces around. He doesn’t tell Dean to sit down, even though he knows it’s probably Dean’s best option after the beating he’s just taken. He knows Dean needs to be free and a little frenzied, even if that means limping.

Dean sits, eventually. He has to – the pain’s got a little too much for even him to bear. He slumps down on the seat next to Roman, and though sitting might somewhat ease the ache, it doesn’t do anything for the _other_ one, the one that’s been brewing since the chair first hit Roman, the one in Dean’s heart-mind-soul.

Not that he’s going to let that show, as obvious as it may be.

“Who needs Seth Rollins, anyway?” he hears himself croak out after sitting in silence gets too overwhelming for him. It’s so false, so fucking contrived, and Roman must know that.

“Yeah, man.” There’s Roman’s arm over Dean’s shoulder: gentle, possibly scared that Dean’s going to explode on him. “Who needs him?”

He knows neither of them means it, that they’re both the answer to the question. But apparently the Authority can offer more than brotherhood and love.

 

 

Somehow, they manage to function without Seth and his meticulous, thorough planning. (Though Dean’s hardly getting by without Seth there for him every day, every night, every fucking second.)

That doesn’t mean that working as a team is as easy as it was. Three was definitely better than two is, even if said two do get along very well.

Dean knows that they’ll have to separate soon, though. They’ll have to grow into themselves alone, without a _Sierra Hotel India Echo Lima Delta_ preceding everything they do. It isn’t the Shield anymore. Not without Seth.

He doesn’t tell Roman this. Roman’s too busy trying to make it clear that they’re fine and just as strong as they always were, maybe even stronger than before because they don’t have some slimy defecting scumbag tagging along.

(He wouldn’t understand the fact that Dean is still in love with Seth, so Dean doesn’t tell him that, either.)

“Who needs Seth Rollins, anyway?”

Roman says it when the two of them are backstage one evening. Dean’s words. (As if he could ever forget them.) Dean just smiles weakly in response, not even bothering to make sure Roman can see through him, because he can’t find any other means to reply right now.

Because even if _Roman Reigns_ isn’t an answer to that question anymore, _Dean Ambrose_ sure as hell still is one.

 

 

It’s a little strange, entering from gorilla instead of through the crowd. Dean wonders if Seth feels the same way about it, but _no_ , now isn’t the time to be wondering how Seth _feels_ about anything. Now is for smashing that fucker’s face in, for making an example of him, for making him _pay_.

Dean doesn’t know how this happened – how he stopped caring so much. Maybe he never did; maybe this is him caring too much and not letting go of things. Roman certainly doesn’t threaten to kill Seth in five hundred different ways in every promo he cuts.

It’s caring in a different way, though – caring more about himself. He doesn’t necessarily worry about the fact that he’ll have to hurt Seth, not anymore, because Seth hurt him more than Dean ever thought was possible. Dean won’t let anyone new in, but he’ll be letting everything out instead.

He’s got new entrance music, new everything. Dean loves Roman – Roman’s his best friend in the goddamn world – but he can’t help but enjoy this greater degree of freedom, not being bound by the Shield and a voice of reason. He can be him.

He can be him, and Seth can be Seth, with the crashing drums and loud guitars that accompany him to the ring and his strange new gear.

They can still be great together, but from different sides now. But _against_ each other now.

Who needs Seth Rollins, anyway?

Soon, the answer to that question won’t even be the Authority. Dean will make sure of it.

(Though deep down, it will always be Dean. He just has to keep telling himself that it’s not.)


End file.
